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Jaipur Forts, Palaces and Museums
Jantar Mantar, Jaipur
Across the road from the palaces is the famous JANTAR MANTAR one of the five
observatories in India. Built by Sawai Jai Singh, this is one of the largest
and the best preserved. A passionate hobby of the king in the field of Astronomy,
numerology, insighted him to execute this observatory and with the help of skilled
labourers, they managed to create a collection of complex astronomical instruments
chiselled out of stone and most of which continues to provide accurate information
to this day. The most striking instrument is the Brihat Samrat yantra Sundial,
an imposing yellow edifice to the far right of the observatory complex which
has a 27m high gnomon arm set at an angle of 27degree.The shadow this casts
moves up to 4m in an hour, and aids in the calculation of local and meridian
pass time and various attributes of the heavenly bodies, including declination
the angular distance of a heavenly body from the celestial equator and altitude.
This highlight of the observatory has made it a centre of attraction for the
tourist visiting Jaipur.
" Jantar Mantar, Jaipur Reservation Form "